1. Bugherd
Price: Free-$99/month for 25 members
Contrary to popular belief, the launch of a new site is not the end of a dev team’s work. If anything it’s the point at which the sweat really starts to build. As clients begin to receive feedback, these garbled and conflicting requests begin to filter back as emails, which then get batted around before finally becoming a bone of contention.
BugHerd provides a neat, well organised way to handle feedback, bug fixes and feature requests – without the email overhead. A simple .js include and visitors to the site get a feedback button. Guests to the project get to file bugs and requests, members get to administer the whole shebang from a friendly, intuitive interface. Progressing bugs from report to action to completion is much preferable to the alternative situation: a gradual build-up which will eventually overwhelm.
Adding tasks is super-easy with BugHerd
2. Fontello
Price: Free
Why is it so hard to find a set of icons that covers all the bases with a consistent look and feel? One of life’s great mysteries perhaps. Well, wonder no more because Fontello not only has all the icons you need but you can pick and choose the glyphs you need and compile these into your own minimalist set.
You can, of course, download the entire set of icons from the GitHub repository (actually it’s several sets) but the fontello.com interface makes customising your font so easy it’s the only sensible approach. The project is open source but as always, donations would be appreciated.
Fontello allows you to pick and choose your icon sets from its collections
3. Proto.io
Price: Free – $49/Month
A good prototyping tool should allow you to get up and running fast but also provide enough depth that you can refine your ideas to the point where they don’t need you leaning over a user’s shoulder saying things like "Just ignore that bit for now". Proto.io does just this.
It also handles all the touch gestures you might want, tackles animations and provides for sharing and commenting. It’s smooth to use and thankfully, there’s a free plan too.
Thanks to Proto.io that game is going to be a smash, probably
4. Foundation 3
Price: Free
Responsive design seems to have gone from zero to about a thousand miles an hour in no time flat. And things are still changing fast enough that small development shops are hard-pushed to stay up to date, let alone conduct their own R&D. That’s where Foundation 3 comes in.
Developed by ZURB, an agency with the resources and experience available to throw at the responsive problem, Foundation 3 can act as a blueprint for your own projects, a rapid prototyping tool or even as an object lesson in how to address some of the web’s must current issues.
The latest release introduces a simplified grid structure and makes the jump to SASS/Compass, allowing for a more readily flexible approach to styling. Though it makes sense to work with SASS if you are planning to have a look at Foundation 3, the customisable download is conceived to allow a straight CSS version too.
Foundation 3 makes great claims and even lives up to some of them
See all 20 at
The 20 best new tools for web design and development of 2012 | Feature | .net magazine.
